Spanish Theater Before 1939: From Benavente to Lorca

Spanish Theater Before 1939

Theater Prior to 1939

The early 20th century saw Spanish theater dominated by “high comedy” in the style of Echegaray and melodramas aimed at thrilling audiences. Public taste and the reluctance of theater owners hindered attempts at innovation. The first third of the century was characterized by:

  1. Bourgeois comedy (rural high comedy and drama)
  2. Madrid or Andalusian farces
  3. Poetic and symbolic theater

Renewed efforts at innovation came from the Generation of ’98 and, in the 1930s, from the poets of the Generation of ’27.

Trends in Spanish Drama Before 1936

A) Commercial Theater

A.1) Benavente’s Bourgeois Comedy

Jacinto Benavente proposed a theater focused on everyday environments, offering a gentle critique of bourgeois ideals. This is evident in works like “The Cheesy,” “Autumn Roses,” and “Vested Interests.” He also explored “rural drama” in plays like “Lady Love” and “The Malquerida.”

A.2) Verse Drama

This style emphasized the use of modernist language on stage. Key figures include:

  • Francisco Villaespesa (“Doña María de Padilla,” “Aben Humeya,” “The Lion of Castile”)
  • Eduardo Marquina (“The Daughters of the Cid,” “In Flanders, the Sun Has Set”)
  • Manuel and Antonio Machado (“Julian Valcárcel,” “Juan de Manara,” “The Oleander,” “Lola Goes to the Ports”)
A.3) Comic Theater

The traditional characters and settings depicted in Romantic genre paintings were revived by authors such as:

  • The Alvarez Quintero brothers, who presented a superficial and distorted image of Andalusia in works like “Hopscotch,” “El Patio,” and “The Cain.”
  • Carlos Arniches, who produced sketches of Madrid life and wrote what he called “grotesque tragedy,” blending humor and pathos (e.g., “Mademoiselle de Trévelez”).

B) Theater of Innovation: Valle-Inclán and García Lorca

The Theater of the Generation of ’98

Beyond commercial concerns, these authors sought a theater that could express their religious, existential, and social conflicts. They created complex works that combined intellectual and philosophical trends with the most innovative aspects of contemporary Western theater.

Valle-Inclán

His diverse output includes novels, short stories, poetry, and plays. A parallel evolution can be seen in his work, moving from a modern, elegant, and nostalgic style (“The Sonatas”) to a more critical one. His plays are often divided into three cycles:

  1. The Myth: Set in a mythical Galicia (e.g., “Comedy Barbaric,” “Divine Words”)
  2. The Farce: Works situated in a ridiculous 18th-century setting, featuring gardens, roses, and swans (e.g., “The Marquise Rosalinda”)
  3. The Grotesque: An attempt to depict Spanish reality in an exaggerated and burlesque manner (e.g., “Luces de Bohemia” (1920) and the “Mardi Gras” trilogy). The Theater of the Absurd is a critical theater that challenges a false reality and nonsensical values (reflecting the critical attitude of the Generation of ’98). “Luces de Bohemia” is considered the starting point of this aesthetic.

The Theater of the Generation of ’27

While poetry was the primary focus of the Generation of ’27, several members also wrote plays, including Pedro Salinas, Rafael Alberti, Miguel Hernández, and Alejandro Casona.

Federico García Lorca

Lorca’s dramatic work can be grouped into three phases:

  1. Early Plays: His 1920 debut, “The Curse of the Butterfly,” a modernist-influenced work, introduced the central theme of Lorca’s drama: romantic dissatisfaction. Its failure was soon followed by the success of “Mariana Pineda,” a historical drama. These two works are joined by the tragic farces of “The Shoemaker’s Prodigious Wife” and “Love of Don Perlimplín with Belisa in the Garden,” both exploring unhappy love affairs.
  2. Avant-Garde Theater: Lorca used the term “impossible comedies” or “mysteries” to describe plays created under the influence of surrealism. Surrealist art aimed to explore the hidden instincts of humanity. In the unfinished play “The Public,” Lorca defends love as an instinct beyond control.
  3. Mature Stage: In the 1930s, Lorca wrote plays that achieved commercial success: “Blood Wedding,” “Yerma,” “Doña Rosita the Spinster,” and “The House of Bernarda Alba.” All share a focus on the role of women. “Blood Wedding” and “Yerma” are tragedies with a classical feel, blending prose and verse and employing a chorus reminiscent of Greek tragedy to comment on the action. Lorca uses symbolic elements to explore familiar themes (love, violence, death, social norms that repress instincts). In “Yerma,” he addresses the issues of sterility and female oppression. “Doña Rosita the Spinster” is an urban drama, also written in prose and verse, but here the verse is used for satire and parody.